I'm in preproduction on a podcast series that will follow my gaming group as we battle our way through Daring Entertainment's War of the Dead. I'm struggling with what length to make the episodes, though.

We just taped our first session on Saturday, and the session ran almost exactly four hours. That seems awfully long for a single episode, so I feel like I need to break it up into more manageable pieces. So how long is a good length?

The classic Penny Arcade casts that WotC did a while back were chopped up into roughly half hours, but I hated that format, and I think a lot of other people did as well. I'm leaning towards going with two hour(ish) shows, which would minimize editing, but I suppose I could go with one hour if somebody makes a good enough case.

I leave it to you, Savages. How long is too long? How short is too short? Am I over-thinking this? Should I just have each story chapter be an episode? I look forward to reading your thoughts. Thanks.

As a trucker who burns through six to twelve hours of audio every single day I like podcasts to be long enough to be a signifigant portion of that time. At the same time editing and cleaning out background noise are essential to my enjoyment. Too messy a recording and I cannot hear over my engine no matter how loud I turn it. Also, make it mono, with the same feed to both speakers.

In my experience editing-out um's, pauses and things that cannot work outside the group (reactions to some visual joke etc) will easily shorten any live action feed to a third or less of it's original length. If you are a bit harsh you can fit it into an hour. Of course editing is hard work and each edited minute will probably take you four minutes to create, so reserve a block of time to do this in if you want to "boil down" the raw material.

Editing also means that you need to be clear what the podcast is trying to convey: atmosphere of your group? how to get the best out of WotD? etc. That will determine what you keep and what you drop.

Just to state the obvious: your audience will be GM's, not players because your content will be spoilerific for WotD._________________Biting! It's like kissing but there's a winner!
The Doctor's Wife

I'm happy with any length, ok with minimal editing and absolutely FINE with profanity riddled podcasts... Holy crap, you wanna' hear profanity, sit around a table during a typical RPG session! We're a foul-mouthed lot, we gamers! Just be natural..._________________DAVROS: ‘Tar Lubek Ka’leed, Uth Ricta Dal’ek.’ Roughly translated, it means: ‘And on that day, men will become like gods.’ (I, DAVROS: GUILT)

I voted for an hour, but that's because "As long as it needs to be" leaves it open for 4 or 6 hour long audios, which is far too long, and 2 hours just seems like it could be two single-hour casts instead. As Timon pointed out, once you do the editing, it'll be shorter than the unedited session, so that might be the major factor in the length of the podcast.

Thanks for all the responses so far, folks. I'm very interested by the broad spectrum of opinions. I think I had subconsciously expected more of a consensus about the "right" way to do this. We'll see if anything emerges as more people weigh in.

As far as editing goes, I won't be doing very much for multiple reasons. I don't have the time. I think it would ruin the flow of the session. A lot of the best stuff is in the asides. Also, a lot of the reason I listen to these sorts of things is to get a feel for how other people's groups run, and you don't get that from a heavily-edited show.

Profanity-wise, there's some in there. We're all adults, and I'm intending the cast for an adult audience and labeling it appropriately. I certainly don't think it's at excessive or offensive levels, but everybody's threshold on that sort of thing is different.

Thanks again for the input, everybody. I'm always looking for more, so keep it coming!

I am in the "As long as it needs to be" camp. As it won't kill me to listen, stop, come back & listen some more. I often listen to pod casts as I do some other project. -so go with it._________________Eastwood Saves! The rest of you take Full Damage.

I am in the "As long as it needs to be" camp. As it won't kill me to listen, stop, come back & listen some more. I often listen to pod casts as I do some other project. -so go with it.

I'm the same way. I'm kind of thinking of this project as more of an audiobook as far as structure goes. You listen to as much as you want in a given sitting, then whenever you want to come back you can pick it up later.

The only thing is that I realize that a lot of the existing podcast culture is focused on 30 minute or less shows, and I'm afraid prospective listeners would see a four hour run time and not even want to try it out.

I suppose if I broke a chapter into chunks of an hour or so each, and only put the intro and outro on the first and last segment respectively, the listening process should be seamless on the user's end, at least if they're using an iPod. I'm afraid that's the only MP3 player I've had experience with for some years now.

I'll have to ponder that alternative for a bit. Meantime, keep those suggestions coming. This is all good stuff. Thanks.

I vote an hour or so but mostly as a way to keep the file size relatively small. I don't want to spent a lot of time downloading a single 4 hour track. I would rather spend time downloading smaller bits and listening to them while I decide if I want to get the rest or not.